Section XI.—Weapon Names.
Weapons were so nearly divine, so full of the warlike temper of their owners, and so often endowed with powers of their own, that it seemed as if they themselves were living agents in the deeds wrought with them.
The sword forged by supernatural smiths, the terrific helmet, the heavenly shield, are dreams of every warlike nation, either endowing the Deity with the symbols of protection or wrath or of might, or carrying on the tradition of some weapon which, either its own intrinsic superiority or the prowess of its owner, had made an object of enthusiasm or of terror.
Some of these tales of magic weapons are perhaps, as Mr. Campbell suggests, remnants of the days when the iron age was coming in, and the mass of arms being of brass, one iron sword, “a sword of light,” as Gaelic tales call it, would have given irresistible superiority to its wielder, and even, perhaps, earned the worship that was paid by Attila’s Huns to the naked sword.
It accords with this theory that Iron appears as a component part of numerous names in Germany, and probably likewise in Scandinavia, though there the similarity of the sound to Iis, ice, occasions a doubt whether the word was intended for ice, or for iron. The North has, indeed, the cold but not inappropriate Snæulf and Snæbiorn, Snæfrid, snow peace, and even the uncomfortable Snælaug; and when their language had dropped the form eisarn for the metal, and called it jern, as we do iron, they probably transferred to ice the meaning of the names that once meant iron.
Isa is an old German feminine. Isambart, or iron splendour, is the best known of all the varieties, having been used in France as Ysambar, and travelled to England as the suitable baptismal name of the two engineers, to whom so much of our ‘iron splendour’ is due. Its German contractions are Isabert and Isbert.
Nor. Isgeir; Ger. Isegar, Isgar—Iron spear
Nor. Isbrand; Ger. Isebrand—Iron sword
Ger. Isebald; Fr. Isambaus—Iron prince
Nor. Iarngard; Ger. Isengard—Iron defence